


Our Way

by pirate_cat



Category: One Direction (Band), Shawn Mendes (Musician)
Genre: Coming Out, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 16:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15076811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirate_cat/pseuds/pirate_cat
Summary: Niall and Shawn sit down and tell the world how they met and how they got together.anon on tumblr prompted: Could you do one that's sort of how they got together (as close to canon as possible) told by them as they come out?





	Our Way

The lights were bright in their eyes, causing both of them to squint a little. Even though they had both done plenty of brightly-lit interviews and photoshoots, they just seemed brighter for this. Maybe it was the weight on their shoulders that was about to be lifted, or maybe it was the thought that this was a bad career move.  
Niall looked over at Shawn with a fond smile on his face and once again just his look made him feel ten times calmer. Niall just has such soft eyes that he feels himself relax into the couch they’re both sitting on. As Shawn and Niall have been together, he can also tell exactly what Niall’s saying behind that look.  
 _We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to._  
Shawn licked at his lips and reached out to take Niall’s hand. “I want to. I want to come out with you,” he murmured.  
“That doesn’t mean we have to do it like this,” Niall whispered, giving Shawn’s hand a squeeze.  
Shawn shrugged his shoulders a little before there was suddenly a burst of noise coming from in front of them as the rest of the crew walked on set and started talking to each other. He swallowed thickly and watched everyone before turning to Niall. “How else would we do it?”  
Niall opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, the director of this whole thing is talking to them. “We are so happy that you boys came to us to release your coming out video,” she said, clapping her hands together. “I know that you’ve both done plenty of interviews in your time, but I’ll just walk you through it. We’ll ask you some questions and you answer them, that simple. We’ll edit it and it’ll be out in a couple days.”  
Shawn snapped his neck to look over at Niall. He didn’t like the sound of _edit_. He knew that that could be just goofs, but he wanted this to be on their own terms. “I’m sorry,” he said, slowly turning his head back to the director. “We’re going to go in a different direction.”

>>>>>

Shawn flopped down on their hotel bed with a groan. “Sorry,” he mumbled, but it was extremely muffled by the duvet. He sat up and turned to look at Niall. “I didn’t want them to edit it without us knowing what they were taking out.”  
Niall smiled and sat down on the bed next to Shawn, rubbing his back a little. “It’s okay, our management set that up, but we can make a video of our own, right? I mean, they’re going to ask us like three things. How did we meet, how did we get together, and how long.”  
Shawn nodded and turned to kiss Niall softly on the cheek. “Very true. Probably add in an invading question or two about our sexuality,” he chuckled.  
“So let’s film our own video. Just on our phone or something, and upload it to instagram or youtube,” Niall suggested.  
“I like the sound of that.”

>>>>>

“So, how we met,” Niall started, turning to look at Shawn.

_@ShawnMendes: i cant stop listening to your music. Wish i could congratulate you in person!  
@NiallHoran: arent you goin t the amas?  
@ShawnMendes: yes!  
@NiallHoran: meet me there!  
@ShawnMendes: hope i dont swoon and faint from seeing THE niall horan!  
@NiallHoran: ey im just your buddy niall ! no different from you  
@ShawnMendes: see u there :)_

“We’d been dming for a while, as I think I’ve mentioned before,” Shawn laughed, thinking back to some of the messages he’d sent. He couldn’t help that he had one of the biggest crushes on Niall that was humanly possible, so he figured he’d get his flirt in. “Super flirtsy, which was probably mostly me. I didn’t even know you liked men.”  
Niall laughed softly as he watched Shawn with a fond smile. “I started flirting back once I realized what you were doing.”  
“Then,” Shawn paused, “we met backstage at the AMAs. I was starstruck, honestly. 

_Shawn heard a familiar Irish accent that he’d heard from interviews too many times to count. He looked in the direction of the sound to see Niall Horan. Niall Horan! Shawn immediately felt nervous. Should he go and say hi? Niall said to meet at the AMAs!  
Shawn wiped his palms on his pants, afraid they were a little sweaty. The person Niall had been talking to just walked away, which meant he wouldn’t be interrupting. “Hi, Niall? Nice to meet you, I’m Shawn Mendes.”  
Niall let out his signature laugh and pulled Shawn into a small hug. “I know who ya are! No need to introduce yourself so formally!”_

 

“That kind of leads to how we got together.”  
“I think it’s kind of a funny story how we got together,” Niall chuckled, giving Shawn a small shove.  
“It’s not _funny,_ ” Shawn insisted, but he was smiling wide and shoved Niall back.  
“Anyway,” Niall continued, disregarding Shawn’s comment, “we clearly had it pretty bad for one another. But, I thought to meself, this is Shawn Mendes, right? He’s so cute, he’s probably just a total flirt and he doesn’t mean anything by saying these things to me.”  
Shawn rolled his eyes playfully and shook his head. “I don’t flirt if I don’t mean it,” he chuckled.  
“I know that now!” Niall said, smiling wide and leaning in to give Shawn a soft kiss on the cheek. “After we met at the American Music Awards, we just started hanging out a ton. At first, we thought, the fans want a collab, so we would give them what they want.”  
“Anytime we would try to sit down to write, we just ended up hanging out. Either just talking about our week, or watching another movie.”

_”Niall, fuck,” Shawn chuckled with a shake of his head. “I can’t pay attention to the Grammys anymore.”  
Niall furrowed his brow and reached out to touch Shawn’s shoulder. “Is something wrong? Was the food bad?” he asked, immediately worried.  
Shawn glanced at Niall’s hand on him and shook his head. “No, I’m fine. I just, I really really like you. I have for a while now, and I just can’t keep it in.”_

“I came over to watch, the, uh, Grammys, right?” Shawn asked, smiling wide at Niall.  
Niall nodded and looked at Shawn with a look of equal fondness. “I don’t exactly know how much watching we did.”  
“Don’t say it like that!” Shawn said, thinking it sounded a little too dirty. “By that, we mean that we talked a lot. I confessed my feelings for him, which was a little scary. I thought he’s so amazing and I’m kinda younger than him, and still a teenager, but it’s really only five years difference.”  
Niall licked at his lips and nodded as Shawn talked. “I did feel bad when I realized me feelings for you, because you are so young, and you’re a man and I’d never had feelings for a man before.”  
“So, after I realized my feelings I just had to confess. I couldn’t hold it in,” Shawn started, looking at Niall with a fond, goofy smile. “I was so nervous and I couldn’t stop talking.”  
Niall chuckled at the memory. “You’d think someone who has so many good songs about love could tell someone how he feels.”  
Shawn rolled his eyes. “I did write Nervous, so it came in handy,” he hummed. “After I finally shut up, Niall didn’t say _a thing!_ ”  
Niall blushed, but he looked down at his hands in his lap trying to hide it. “I--I must admit, I was stunned. I didn’t think someone as gorgeous and sweet as you would go for a bloke like me,” he said with a nervous laugh.  
Shawn’s smile softened and he lifted Niall’s head with a gentle touch of his fingers. “I don’t know why you’d be surprised or what you mean by ‘bloke like you,’” Shawn murmured, leaning in and kissing the corner of Niall’s lips.  
Niall smiled and nodded. “I know, but at the time,” he insisted. “Eventually, I was out of me trance or whatever I was in. Shawn looked upset that I hadn’t responded yet.”  
“Imagine pouring your heart out and just getting stared at,” Shawn said in a monotone, staring right at the camera. “He leaned in and kissed me. My lips against his just felt so amazing. Magical, even.”  
Niall nodded and took Shawn’s hand in his hands. “So, that’s pretty much it, right?”  
Shawn shrugged his shoulders and hummed in agreement. “Just a small talk about what we wanted, and we decided we wanted a serious relationship. So, here we are.”  
“So all of your tweets and stuff about this, uh, ‘shiall’ being real, is true,” Niall said with a small laugh.  
“Very true,” Shawn agreed. “Yeah, so we’re together and very happy. We hope for your continued support of us and our careers. Thank you guys so much.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I'm on tumblr as spongeystyles, so feel free to send me a prompt! As always, kudos and comments are much much appreciated!! Thank you so much for reading!


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